1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to models and, in particular, to computer aided design models. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for processing computer aided design models.
2. Background
Computer aided design (CAD) systems employ the use of computers and software to design objects. The models generated by computer aided design systems include drawings of objects. These drawings may be two-dimensional drawings, three-dimensional drawings, or a combination of the two. Additionally, these models also may include information about the objects. For example, materials, processes, dimensions, tolerances, and other information about an object and the different parts making up the object may be present. In addition, models of computer aided design systems can also include design history, features, design parameters, constraints, and dependencies of parts for an object in the models.
Computer aided design systems are often used to generate models of complex objects, such as an aircraft. With objects such as an aircraft, the size of models for these types of objects may increase in size and complexity. For example, a model of a single fuselage section for a very complex vehicle such as an aircraft may have thousands of elements, which can result in a model which is over 100 MB and/or even a terabyte in size. Such an aircraft may have many such fuselage sections, which adds to the complexity and substantially increases the size of the resultant model. The different elements in the model may have multiple complex interdependencies and may include inefficiencies such as extraneous and redundant elements. Thus, the complexity of the model greatly increases as the number of elements and complex interdependencies per elements grows. Models for other parts of the aircraft may have similar or greater numbers of elements. As a result, the cost to create, maintain, and change models also may increase more than desired.
It is often desirable to analyze, view, and check various parts of a model. Reviewing a model generated by a computer aided design system may aide a designer in validating, documenting, and understanding a design process. However, viewing a model in a computer aided design system does not easily provide this type of information to a designer or other person.
Additionally, the model may not be organized or as efficient as desired. For example, the model may be larger than needed because of duplicate elements or redundant elements in the model. As a result, a computer aided design system may not process the model as efficiently or as quickly as desired. Further, when models are larger than needed, the storage space used for the models also is larger than needed. Additionally, the CAD systems may require unnecessarily powerful and expensive components equipped with large amounts of processors, random access memory, and memory storage devices, which are needed to enable the CAD systems' users to effectively design, use, manipulate, and modify large models of complex real-world objects.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus that takes into account at least some of the issues discussed above as well as possibly other issues.